Engaging and Empowering Families: Research Findings on a Service Effectiveness Study of a Parent Empowerment Program

Synopsis: This symposium presents findings from an NIMH supported randomized trial of a manualized parent empowerment program (PEP). The study follows a cohort of 24 family advocates from New York City and 129 caregivers with whom they work. Family advocates were randomly assigned to training and no-training conditions. The empowerment training program was designed to increase knowledge of children’s psychiatric disorders and evidence based treatments, enhance collaborative skills, and strengthen self-efficacy. The 129 caregivers in the study were family members receiving services for their children from the participating family advocates. These caregivers were interviewed at baseline and six months later to examine changes in knowledge, skills, attitudes, and service use. The symposium will highlight the impact of the empowerment program by presenting preliminary data on comparative outcomes associated with the program. The presentation will also describe the caregivers in terms of mental health issues, family impact, and service use. Focus group data on family advocates’ impressions about empowerment and family support programs will also be presented.

Date:
Friday, February 24, 2006

Session Time: 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM

Presentation Time: 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM

Parent Empowerment 101: Training Family Advocates on the Foundations of Empowerment

We're sorry, handouts are not available for this presentation.

Presenting: Geraldine Burton

All Authors for this paper: Geraldine Burton; Adam Stein

Presentation Type: element of symposium

Synopsis: The Parent Empowerment Program is a service strategy designed to increase access to and use of mental health services by families of children with mental health problems through the specialized training of family advocates with whom they work. A critical gap in effectiveness studies is the lack of attention to family-based services. A sample of 24 family advocates delivering services in New York City were randomly assigned to either complete 10-weeks of training with monthly booster sessions or to receive training as usual. A range of outcomes were assessed including knowledge about evidence-based practices, collaborative skills, and service self-efficacy. This presentation will present findings from this trial on outcome differences between the training and no-training groups. In addition, we will describe the key components of the empowerment training program and lessons learned from the service effectiveness trial.

Empowering Caregivers of Children with Mental Healthcare Needs: Addressing Strains and Stresses of Inner-City Parents

We're sorry, handouts are not available for this presentation.

Presenting: James Rodriguez; Belinda Ramos

All Authors for this paper: James Rodriguez; Belinda Ramos

Presentation Type: element of symposium

Synopsis: This presentation will describe findings from a study of caregivers of children with mental health problems receiving services from professional family advocates in New York City. Half of the family advocates received specialized training in a Parent Empowerment Program, a manualized program designed to increase knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy of both caregivers and family advocates. The 129 caregivers, randomly selected from the caseloads of 24 family advocates, were assessed to determine their mental health needs, mental health service use, child functioning, anger expression, caregiver strain, and levels of family empowerment. Baseline and preliminary data relative to all of these domains will be provided. The effectiveness of the training and the need for parent empowerment interventions will be discussed in relation to the needs of low-income minority, inner-city parents.

Family Advocate Perspectives on the Parent Empowerment Process: Turning Points

We're sorry, handouts are not available for this presentation.

Presenting: Belinda Ramos; James Rodriguez

All Authors for this paper: Belinda Ramos; James Rodriguez

Presentation Type: element of symposium

Synopsis: This presentation will offer data on focus groups conducted with family advocates participating in a study testing the effectiveness of a parent empowerment program. Family advocates were interviewed about obstacles they encounter in their work, useful strategies in empowering caregivers, and the process of empowerment that led them into advocacy. The focus of this presentation is to characterize the key turning points of family advocates' movement towards advocacy and evaluate their ideas on quality family support.